The Monster Within
by Spider and the Fly
Summary: AU where Severus and Remus meet each other in the countryside before Hogwarts. Severus's dad is nice and life is good. And then they get the letters...


Remus was unable to remember a time when he hadn't been a monster. Severus had given up trying to tell him that wasn't true, that he wasn't like the others: they were wilder, infected. Remus didn't listen; he knew what he was. Just because Severus's life was kinder didn't mean he knew everything. And his life wasn't as kind as it could be.

They were poor farmers, living at the edge of a poor town, on the edge of a poor country that was constantly raided by pirates. It was, to be honest, very poor. But life was good.

Remus was taken in by Severus's family two years ago after escaping from a "research/containment unit" several miles away, weeks' travel from Severus's farm. Severus had fed him, seeing only his eyes in the dark and thinking him a stray dog. Remus still didn't know why the Wolf had left him alive and unChanged. It never had before.

It had gone on like this for months, with Remus getting taller and ganglier, and Severus getting a little taller and a lot thinner. The comfortable arrangement had come to an end when a man tried to rob the house for food and Remus' wolf defended the family inside. He'd been frightened when he woke up in Severus's house, on their floor with a blanket over him. Severus had called him Wolf for several weeks after that, until Remus remembered how to speak and corrected him, telling him you weren't supposed to acknowledge the Wolf, or it wakes and gets angry. Surprisingly, it never got angry at Severus, only sniffy and puppy-like, something Remus had never seen before.

Severus's parents accepted him. He told them about the Wolf-mind, and how they'd somehow been accepted into the Wolf's Pack. That's why he'd protected them then: the Pack had been in danger. His mother had looked a little stunned, but he told her he'd work for free if they'd let him stay in their barn. That had caused Severus's father to agree; free work wasn't something to turn down, not in this day and age.

"So, Wolf. What's it like, sharing your body with a wild creature? It must be interesting. What age were you infected?" Severus was scholarly, and his questions were endless. He asked questions too fast for Remus to answer, then sat back and waited for Remus to remember the English to respond. He knew Remus wasn't stupid (he'd figured that out quickly), but he knew that the Wolf-mind forgot these things, and after living that way for ages, it took a little while to get everything back.

"It is...not sharing. The body is mine, the Wolf an invader of my mind, and when the time comes, I give it my body as well, so it doesn't rip me to pieces inside. It is a fight, and every day I win. But most do not. They spend every day trapped in a vessel that suits the Wolf and shuns the Man." Remus paused in his apple picking. "I was infected very young, as a punishment to my parents for not joining a Lord's army. My father left me at a cliff and told me to do what was right for humanity. I jumped, but I survived and the Wolf followed the scent of sheep."

Severus's face when he was analyzing something was interesting; a myriad of emotions, logic, reasoning, and skepticism. He had none of the latter here; Remus didn't lie.

The night was dark. It was depressing, and quiet, and lonely, and Severus hated it. The dark brought monsters. He hoped the stray he'd been feeding was alright; he'd hate for the chill of an early winter to kill it.

He heard the door open quietly, but both his parents were already in the house, and no neighbor would travel at this hour, not unless something was gravely wrong. He turned, and felt his heart pick up when a third in, scraggly, rat-like man with a long knife loomed at him, though he was shorter and Severus had muscles from working the field. The man lunged, and even as he moved to defend himself, the man was much too fast for one so thin, and he was upon him. Severus's breath rushed out of him in a quick, jerky shriek of air and sound until his windpipe was cut off suddenly.

They both froze as a horrible scrabbling sound, like beasts at the window or knives on a stone, echoed through the small house. Severus's parents entered at a run and stopped in a panic in the doorway. The robber himself wailed, backing away from Severus in a flash. At the sound, a howl like growing thunder rose.

And with a horrible crack, the door flew open. (It had been trying to open the door by the door handle; that had been the sound they'd heard.)

A monstrous wolf that stood on its hind legs and glared down at their intruder at a height taller than that of Severus's father entered. It didn't roar or posture. It simply stood, sniffing the air and looking threatening. The robber sniveled.

"That's the monster that's been hanging around your house! It was going to eat you!" Severus looked up at it, right into its eyes, and remembered that exact shade of golden brown watching him warily from beneath a bush. He approached cautiously, extending a hand and cooing softly. His eyes were looking over its right shoulder so he'd never be looking it in the eye and challenging it, but he saw the beast's quick lunge. He stilled as one claw came to rest haphazardly on his cheek and the wolf bent to sniff at his neck. His mother let out a tiny squeak of fear, and the wolf stopped, clutching Severus's cheek tightly, as though making sure he was still there, still safe. It whined in his ear and he shuddered, trying not to move and startle it. One doesn't startle werewolves. They don't react well.

The werewolf's head lifted and it pinned the would-be thief with a glare, pulling its claw away from Severus's neck. It came away red and dripping, and Severus's father yelled angrily and stepped forward, grabbing his axe from the corner. The wolf didn't give him time to attack, however. It simply leaped forward and caught the thief's neck in its jaws, clenching its teeth shut with a crack.

It dropped the body to the ground by the door, arranging the limbs in an almost human manner, before coming back to Severus. It whined at his neck sadly, opening and closing the paw that held his blood. He glanced to the robber in a sudden thought, and realized that the robber's knife had scratched him when the man had tried to silence him. He saw his parents realize this as well, but stand stiffly to attention when the wolf laid its head awkwardly in his lap. His knees had given out when he watched the thief's death, and the wolf that had killed a man for making him bleed was lying at his feet like a puppy in need of comfort.

He nervously began to pet its head and back, trying to stay still and quiet, but jerked when he realized the fur along the snout was receding, the claws and jaw shrinking until it was a naked teenage boy with a shivering body that lay across his lap, still whining like the wolf.

The boy didn't speak. He was polite, and kind, and he didn't allow himself to get mad around them for fear of harming them. Severus had tried speaking to him, getting him to talk back, or even seeing if he understood, but he couldn't be sure the results were genuine or just his hopeful mind creating reactions. He was an enigma, and Severus was eaten up with the desire to understand him.

He'd take the boy out to the fish pond and the forest sometimes; even though he was afraid the boy (whom he'd begun to call Wolf) would run away. He watched Wolf catch butterflies and dragonflies gently in his palms before letting them go. Sometimes, when Severus had done something wrong, Wolf would catch fish from the pond and birds from the field and give it to him to eat. Wolf was cheerful, and positive, but sometimes, when Severus and he were at the forest, he'd stop and get in front of Severus, and snarl at air. They always had to go home early those days, and Severus wasn't allowed to leave the farm for days afterward.

Severus had begun to think of Wolf as an intelligent dog in a man's body, so when he began to speak in full, educated sentences, Severus was slightly astounded. He was almost afraid Wolf would leave them now that he had complete control over his body, but Wolf stayed. And every day after that, Severus woke up to find Wolf (or Remus, as he'd corrected Severus before) was still there, and still smiling at him. He quickly got used to it, to Remus.

The village boys were in awe of Remus's grace. He didn't move with the step of a man, he moved like a hunting beast on the prowl. He was approached often by boys and girls who complemented him on his long brown hair that he braided over his shoulder every morning, and his long, thin legs with corded muscles. They went down to the river sometimes so they could swim and admire his stomach, which was muscular because of his long stint as a wolf. One boy teased him because of his scars, stretching long and deep down his side like an oppressive rainbow. He must have thought the others would rally behind him to torment this new boy. Nobody did. Remus still smiled at him, but it had an edge of teeth and bone. That was the only time the other children were frightened of Remus, but they still rallied behind him and told off the other boy, saying he shouldn't pick on people just because they were new and more popular than him.

:END OF CHAPTER ONE:

 **AN: thanks to my fantastic beta (I don't know her username just yet, but she's very nice, so yay), this story is now mostly grammatically correct with accurate punctuation.**

 **If anyone would like a continuation, please PM me and i'll see about making it happen! :) hope you liked it!**


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